Crusade rhetoric racialized Muslims as a vile and accursed race.
Evidence
Those heeding Pope Urban II’s exhortation at Clermont in 1095, to take up the cross in the First Crusade, remembered him saying that the Holy Land and much of Byzantium had been taken by ”the Turks”, an ”accused race”, a ”slave of the demons”. He urged his coreligionists ”to exterminate this vile race from the lands of our brethren”. — Nasar Meer, Racialization and Religion, 12
Categorization
- DEFINE: Shows that ‘race’ discourse predates modern scientific racism and was applied to religious others as early as 1095.
- XREF: connects to: Parallel racialization logics target Jews and Muslims across eras. — Nasar Meer, Racialization and Religion: Race,…, 40; Shakespeare’s Moor and Jew characters encoded pre-modern racialized difference. — Nasar Meer, Racialization and Religion: Race,…, 27; Crusade-era rhetoric called Muslims an accursed race utterly alienated from God. (+11 more)
Related
- Muslims were constituted as an inferior race via the figure of Homo islamicus. (similarity 0.83)
- Medieval crusade rhetoric framed Muslims as objects of conversion or extermination (similarity 0.83)
- Medieval theologians constructed Muslims as a degraded race descending from the slave Hagar (similarity 0.82)
- Medieval Christians racialized Muslims as black, bestial, and lustful (similarity 0.82)
- Crusade-era rhetoric called Muslims an accursed race utterly alienated from God. (similarity 0.81)
- Medieval anti-Muslim prejudice was protoracism, not full modern racism (similarity 0.81)
- European superiority over Muslim empires enabled racial notions of Muslim inferiority (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval Christian chroniclers racialized dark-skinned Muslims as diabolical and deceptive. (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval racialization wrote ethnic anxieties onto Muslim bodies as overlapping afflictions (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Crusade-era rhetoric called Muslims an accursed race utterly alienated from God.
#corroborates(1.00) - Medieval Christian chroniclers racialized dark-skinned Muslims as diabolical and deceptive.
#exemplifies(0.82) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 971 - Even racialized portrayals of Muslim enemies carried Islamophobic overtones
#expands(0.80) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 102 - Medieval Christians racialized Muslims as black, bestial, and lustful
#expands(0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 160 - Medieval racialization wrote ethnic anxieties onto Muslim bodies as overlapping afflictions
#expands(0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 102 - Medieval crusade rhetoric framed Muslims as objects of conversion or extermination
#expands(0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 625 - Muslims were racialized through cultural signifiers rather than phenotype alone
#qualifies(0.78) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 106 - European superiority over Muslim empires enabled racial notions of Muslim inferiority
#expands(0.75) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1826 - Islam is ideologically expelled from religion itself in its racialization
#expands(0.75) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 872 - Orientalism converted Muslim identity from a religion into a race.
#expands(0.75) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 161 - Racialized religion explains why religious-freedom advocates justify targeting Muslims.
#expands(0.72) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 197